Inked: Emotional ABCs
Serpents wrap my arm
dragons glide across my back
my dreams draw my skin
‘Love me’ on knuckles
‘Kiss my–‘ tattooed on my ass
My fantasies ink expressed
No make-up in my vanity drawer.
Lipstick, eyeliner and shadow–they’re inked
on my skin ’cause application’s a bore.
Who wants to spend their precious time hoodwinked
by maybelline–’cause I wasn’t ‘born with it’.
My eyes didn’t come out of the womb khol-rimmed.
I was born a blank canvas; I commit
my pasty self to the artist’s brush trimmed
to just the right shape to recast my face
from mousy to memorable; jigsaw
my chemo-bare scalp, cause I’m a puzzle
soon to be hid beneath ink without flaw.
At the ‘ol tattoo parlor, I muzzle
the plain person who walked in and let shout
the real me that screams, thrashes, to break out.
Ink me I’m ready
set that needle to my flesh
color soaks my soul
Ink redefines me
frees my inner beast to roar
look out world, I’ve come.
~ ~ ~
Sorry to disappoint, but I have no tattoos.
“Look out world, I’ve come.” Ink or no ink.
I love the message this poem conveys – Firm, confident, full of character. Just like you.
Thank you! 🙂
Always!
🙂
I almost thought this poem was inspired by you having a tattoo.
Very creative and the way you rhyme in every line beautiful! The ending is perfect. 🙂
Thank you 🙂 Sorry to disappoint your but my skin is quite un-inked 😉
its okay. i love your mind. 🙂
Thank you 🙂 It’s awfully crowded in there.
I’d love to live in your mind someday,. 🙂
I don’t know how you’d fit and if you saw inside, you’d run screaming from what you’d find 🙂 I am definitely not normal.
I’d still love to live in your mind. 🙂
well climb on in. There’s always room for more characters 🙂 You should note on page 989 of the legal waiver that real life often borrows from my fiction. Still want to live in here?
Yes, I still want to live in your mind. I wouldn’t be scared. 🙂
this idea of living in another mind–how would that work? I’m no Jean Grey 😉
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Thank you 🙂 I have a lot of meetings today but I will try to stop in and have a look later today or tomorrow.
Awesome, Mel. I have plenty of ink and this hit just the right note with me. I found it a very visual poem, imagining how each tat would look…nicely done, I’ve missed reading you 🙂
Thank you! I am glad this rang true. I have no tats, so i was going off of what I’ve read and heard from others and my own imagination. I have a characters with tats over most of his body.
I have missed reading you too. I have a couple more meeting to survive today and then I am coming your way to read and also visiting a lot of folks I couldn’t get to over the weekend 😉 Let’s hope all’s quiet after that next meeting!
wow! this is fierce!!! like capital FIERCE!!!
and these lines are just, lovely:
Ink me I’m ready
set that needle to my flesh
color soaks my soul
Thank you! I like that one too 🙂 Yeah this one was pretty fierce!
and i love fierce, Mel!! 😀
Me too! 🙂
Ha! Ha! For a fleeting moment I frowned wondering about your tatoos. ‘
Not sure whether you intended it, but I sense a ‘double entendre’ in the usage of of ‘ink’ especially in the later ‘two haiku’….. 😉 Hugs! <3
hmmm, I will have to reread. I wrote Ink late at night. A double entendre could have slipped in there unnoticed. I get very literal when tired. Thank you for pointing it out! I’ll go check it out!
Perhaps that is just typical of how I normally read….one can…and does say things subliminally. I like this…especially when it is not contrived…. 😉 Hugs!
I like it too 🙂 I reread between meetings and I see what you mean. It’s funny because I didn’t intend for that! It was an accidental benefit 🙂
The subliminal is never accidental my dear….That’s how the ‘Unconscious’ works – hence its name. 😉 Hugs!
Ah so that’s how it works! It oozes through the cracks in consciousness. Hey that’s a good premise…I feel a poem coming on… 😉
Yeah…..except that ‘it’ will not be manipulated…. 😉
No it won’t 🙂
😉 Hugs!
Hugs to you too! 🙂
Some great lines here, Mel.
“Who wants to spend their precious time hoodwinked
by maybelline–’cause I wasn’t ‘born with it’.”
(I love this jab at Maybe Maybelline :), you are such a clever writer. I would definitely not be hoodwinked, even if i am not born with it 🙂
And then this:
“Ink me I’m ready
set that needle to my flesh
color soaks my soul”
So beautiful!
P.S. I have a teeny weeny ink on me, a circle of love 😉
Thank you! Yeah that mabeline thing bugs me. Always has. It implies that women aren’t pretty when they’re faces aren’t made up. Which is a total lie.
That’s cool that you have a tattoo 🙂 In my next life I will be more decisive about that kind of thing and get some ink.
Love it! I’m inked, and thought for years how awesome it would be to have eyeliner inked — but I couldn’t bear the thought of needles next to my eyes 😉 Thank goodness I found the best eyeliner ever in the past year to negate the need to ever ink it in 🙂
That’s awesome! I don’t have any ink on my person for the same reason I have no pictures on my walls at home–I change my mind minute to minute about what to put there. 🙂
Ha! That would be a challenge 😉 Or, you could go for an evolving tat — a friend of mine started with one smallish design on her calf and has added to it over the years for an entire artwork on her leg 😉 I see a whole backstory forming for that one!
oh wow but I’d have to decide on the starting pattern…I don’t see that happening. Permanent anything freaks me out. I have to analyze it to death and come up with something I can live with.
I know what you mean – I prefer to go with a general flow versus set-in-stone 😉
That sounds like an easier place to start 🙂